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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24536587">edge of the brooklyn bridge</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/noteworthyrhubarbplants/pseuds/noteworthyrhubarbplants'>noteworthyrhubarbplants</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Domestic Violence, Emotional Constipation, Historical Accuracy, I tried anyway, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Pre-Canon, Probable Historical Inaccuracy, i literally can’t speak italian, or play poker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 10:28:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,565</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24536587</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/noteworthyrhubarbplants/pseuds/noteworthyrhubarbplants</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>I’m thinkin’ you might be on the wrong side of the bridge, Higgins.”</em>
</p><p>  <em>“Don’t talk bad ‘bout yourself, Conlon,” Race replies.</em></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Spot Conlon/Racetrack Higgins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>85</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>edge of the brooklyn bridge</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>1899</em>
</p><p>After he sells out of the morning edition of the World down at the Sheepshead Races, Racetrack Higgins puts an entire half dollar on the underdog for the afternoon race.</p><p>“You simple or somethin’?” Mr. Schäfer wants to know, leant over the counter of his concession stand with a cigarette and bristling moustache. “She’s in her first season, and she ain’t a winner. She’s only good for a broodmare. You ain’t gonna see your half dollar anytime soon.”</p><p>But anyway, the headline was good - two striking trolley workers have just been sentenced for beating the ever-loving daylights out of some unsuspecting clerk working for the Brooklyn City Railroad Company. Besides, Race likes an underdog, and the horse, Bridie, has a determined arch in her neck as she’s herded into her starting stall.</p><p>He strolls out of the track that afternoon with pockets jingling with the winnings, and the sour faces of the other punters at his back. </p><p>“I got the eye, s’all gents!” he calls over his shoulder. “Ain’t I always said so?”</p><p>“You got pure dumb luck is what you got, kid!” Mr. Schäfer yells after him. Race laughs and waves, spirits high, and disappears into the lively Brooklyn streets. </p><p>It’s a hot day, and Race likes the feeling of money in his pocket. By the time he’s wandering through the fish markets on the waterfront, he can hear the clamour of the docks, Spot Conlon’s newsboys dropping newspapers and hats and clothes and diving into the East River in their underwear. High above the commotion, lounging on a stack of crates, Spot Conlon himself is reading a newspaper.</p><p>Race takes a cigar out of his pocket and clamps it between his teeth, patting down his waistcoat for the matchbook as he approaches. “You’re goddamn late, Higgins!” someone hollers. “Game’s startin’!”</p><p>“I know youse all waitin’ up on me Comiskey!” Race shouts back cheerfully. “Ain’t no game if I’m not in it!”</p><p>That catches Spot’s attention. Race glances up from lighting his cigar and they make eye contact. Spot’s gaze narrows, and he jumps down with a discernible grace, newsies shuffling out his way expectantly as he strides toward Race.</p><p>He folds up his newspaper at leisure, long fingers creasing every line, tucking it up under one arm. Race takes a drag of his cigar and waits, smiling.</p><p>“I’m thinkin’ you might be on the wrong side of the bridge, Higgins.”</p><p>“Don’t talk bad ‘bout yourself, Conlon,” Race replies.</p><p>Spot ignores this. “Squint says you was down the Sheepshead ta’day.”</p><p>“Might’ve been.”</p><p>“We been havin’ conversations ‘bout this,” Spot says. “It’s Brooklyn turf, ain’t it? Every square inch, and you ain’t Brooklyn.”</p><p>“That’s so,” Race says agreeably. “I ain’t. And you’ll never see me there again, swear it - after next week.”</p><p>“Next week?”</p><p>“Gonna clean up next week, I just know it.”</p><p>“You never do. Don’t see why it should be startin’ now.”</p><p>“Matter of fact, I won ta’day,” Race says proudly, digging in his pocket for the money. “Horse was called Bridie, but I’m thinkin’ of renamin’ her Dumb Luck.”</p><p>Spot’s eyes gleam, and Race knows it’s all right. “Ain’t nobody got more’ve that than youse.”</p><p>A girl passes by them, loose ends of a wool shawl trailing out behind her and the satchel slung over her back empty. Race tips his hat to her with a winning grin, and Gilly ducks her head, but he sees her blushing as she turns away and can’t help but feel pleased. </p><p>“You game for a bit of poker, Conlon?”</p><p>“Poker wit’ you?” Spot asks. “And maybe I’ll just empty out my pockets right now, huh? Go rob some of ‘em who don’t know no better,” </p><p>“Think you’ll lose, huh?” Race wants to know.</p><p>“Mind your goddamn mouth Higgins, this ain’t Manhattan.”</p><p>Race shoulders him, ducks a swipe of Spot’s stick, and in no less than five minutes has gathered up a group of Brooklyn newsies and is shuffling his prized pack of dog-eared cards.</p><p>Gilly accepts her hand and frowns down at it, her cap tipped over her eyes to shade her face from the sun. She’s a runner, or that’s what she tells people, been living in gutters since she can’t remember. She’s sweet on him too, but she’s too shy to say it. Race half-wishes he liked her too. It would be easier.</p><p>“Deal it in, Higgins,” Comiskey dumps five leftover papes and sits down cross-legged on the dock. “I’m feelin’ lucky.”</p><p>“You ready ta lose your week’s rent, huh?”</p><p>Comiskey lights a cigarette and rolls his good eye. “Sure hope you're ready to sleep in some Manhattan gutter. Three bits.”</p><p>“Raise you two.”</p><p>“Callin’ it.” </p><p>Race deals to the middle of the circle. Cloddy, whose real name is Clyde and has never looked older than twelve in the five years Race has known him, is glaring at his cards, deep in thought. The one-armed boy beside Cloddy, who everyone calls Lop-Side Phil, is blinking at his hand, looking undecided. “Goddamn, fold,” he mutters. “Charley wiped me out last week.”</p><p>“Too bad!” Race crows. “I’ll raise.”</p><p>“Rigged,” Cloddy complains. “He rigs it every time.”</p><p>“Nah, he lost nearly everythin’ last week. He’s bluffin’.”</p><p>“Fold.”</p><p>“Call.”</p><p>Comiskey takes a card off the table and nods. “Check,” he says. Gilly glances up at him.</p><p>“Foldin’.”</p><p>Comiskey, Race, and Cloddy put down their cards.</p><p>“Four of’ a kind!” Cloddy swipes his cards off the table angrily. “Youse a fuckin’ cheater, I swear to God Higgins!”</p><p>“Royal flush!” Race gives a whoop of joy, scraping the money toward him. “That next week’s dinners, Comiskey?”</p><p>***</p><p>He ends up back at the Brooklyn lodging house instead of trailing back to Manhattan, because there’s always a card game or two going on. He’s well-liked and always welcome there, because he’s generous with his bets even when he can’t afford to be and always has something smart to say. </p><p>Besides, back in the Manhattan lodging house Kid Blink will be sitting on their bunk with a cigarette and a gang of boys, discussing the pretty draper’s assistant in 11th avenue whom he’s currently trying to romance, and somebody’s going to look at Race to ask what he thinks. </p><p>Three girls from the girl’s lodgings sneak into the house after the superintendent’s assistant has finished his rounds; two of them go off with their sweethearts but Gilly rejoins them at the card table, and together with Comiskey, Cloddy, and Charley Smith, they make for a boisterous game of poker.</p><p>Race wins once more; then loses three times after that. Fifth round, Spot drops in between him and Charley Smith and puts  three dimes on the table. </p><p>“I reckon you’se all talk Racer,” he’s smiling, entirely unsympathetic. “‘Cause I just watched Comiskey clean out those winnings of yours.”</p><p>“Least you can tell when he’s cheatin’,” Cloddy says. “Only time he wins.”</p><p>There’s a general laugh from the rest of the table; Race grins goodnaturedly and says “Lordy but I never need to cheat when Cloddy’s at the table. Fairly wins the game for me.”</p><p>He stays later than he means to, past midnight to be sure. He wins back maybe half his money from Comiskey, cuts his losses and tucks the rest of the money safely back in his pockets.</p><p>All the sorts in the streets now are bad sorts. Somewhere in the distance there’s a brawl going on, drunken men and shattering glass.</p><p>“I’m all right,” Race insists.</p><p>“Some kid’s gonna cut your throat for that money, Higgins,” Spot says. “I know what you’re like, wanderin’ all over Creation, actin’ like they’se all your best friends.”</p><p>“Well I ain’t wanderin’, I’m headin’ straight for the boardin’ house.”</p><p>“And with the strikes and all, bulls are all ‘bout, and they ain’t picky ‘bout whether the kid they’se soakin’ is guilty or not,” </p><p>“Wasn’t I all right after that bull clumped me one for loiterin’ in Prospect Park the other week? Didn’t get hardly a scratch.”</p><p>“Quit arguin’ with me Higgins,” Spot says, losing what precious patience he has. “I’ll have ‘em fellers fix you up ta save the bulls the trouble.”</p><p>“You gonna give me a personal escort back ta Manhattan, Conlon?”</p><p>“I can go,” Whip offers, always eager to please. “I can go Spot.”</p><p>Race is just weighing up what’s worse - a run in with the bulls or the ten minutes to Brooklyn Bridge with Whip talking his ear off - when Spot says abruptly, “I’ll take him.”</p><p>“You will?” Race asks, surprised.</p><p>“You gotta ‘nother unwelcome opinion Higgins?” Spot wants to know.</p><p>“Nothin’ of the sort.” Race nods at Gilly, claps Comiskey on the shoulder, and plucks his deck from Cloddy’s hands. Spot’s already out the door, hat stuck in his back pocket; Race can hear him tapping his cane irritably in the corridor. </p><p>They pick their way through the streets, still teeming though it’s well and truly dark now. Golden shafts of light are spilling out of the windows and doorways of taverns lining the street, dock workers and sailors staggering from one dive to another, women leaning out of the warmth to greet them.</p><p>They don’t pay much mind to Spot or Race; they slip unnoticed through the crowds of people, Spot leading the way with an unconscious ease.</p><p>“Could’ve just gone wit’ one of your boys,” Race says; his eyes are on the stiff set of Spot’s shoulders. “Whip, or -”</p><p>“Want a job done right, you do it yourself,” Spot answers without looking around.</p><p>Race hurries a little faster to fall into step with him. The street they round onto has a rambling knot of men off from their shifts at the shipyard, sitting idle and throwing empty bottles at the opposite building. Race turns away from them and walks by in Spot’s footsteps.</p><p>“So, you steppin’ out wit’ Gilly?” Spot asks suddenly as they walk out of the men’s eyesight.</p><p>Race turns to look at Spot perplexedly. He’s a good poker player and he knows it, but still he’s never quite able to read Spot at the best of times, and now it’s almost impossible. </p><p>“What might give’ya that impression Conlon?”</p><p>“She ain’t quit starin’ since you arrived.”</p><p>Race goes for another cigar, stowed away, forever wary of the light-fingered boys in the boarding house. “Well, I got my God-given good looks, know how ta treat a lady, recently come into some money -”</p><p>“You lose more than you win and sleep under the Sheepshead concession stand when you ain’t got your lodgin’ money.”</p><p>“You wound me, honest.” Race strikes a match and lights his cigar. “I got <em>personality.</em>”</p><p>He offers it to Spot, who takes it with a practiced motion. Their fingers meet and Spot snatches them away just as quick, sticking the cigar into his mouth at a jaunty angle and cramming his cap back on his head. </p><p>“Yeah, you got that, all right,” he says. “Plenty of it, and a smart mouth to go wit’ it.”</p><p>Race shoves his hands into his trouser pockets, left hand brushing against the matchbox, and watches Spot out the corner of his eye.</p><p>Spot’s face is hard and sharp, with hair that can’t decide precisely which colour it is. Obscured under his newsboy cap, in the dark like this, it looks inky golden, and makes his eyes look darker too, almost permanently narrowed, eyebrows above drawn together in hard scepticism. Race wonders momentarily what Spot would look like if he wasn’t scowling, and then looks back down at his feet, feeling cold in the oppressively close heat of the night.</p><p>“Gilly and I ain’t courtin’,” he mumbles. “Nothin’ to youse if we was.”</p><p>“She’s Brooklyn.”</p><p>Race shrugs, snatches his cigar out of Spot’s mouth. “She ain’t my kinda girl.”</p><p>“What, only Manhattan’s good enough for youse?”</p><p>“What’s the difference?”</p><p>Spot looks away before he speaks. “They’se all the same ta me, s’pose,” he says indistinctly, sounding almost unsure of this himself. “Dame’s a dame, ain’t she?”</p><p>“Dame’s a dame,” Race echoes. “You got one?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“A dame.”</p><p>“No,” Spot says, and his shoulders curl inward. “I ain’t.”</p><p>“What about Gilly?”</p><p>“Give <em>over</em> Higgins.”</p><p>“Oh sure.” Race takes another puff on his cigar, and falls quiet again, grinning, because Spot sounds ruffled, and in Race’s book that’s something like a miracle.</p><p>They’re at the Brooklyn Bridge. Spot’s gaze is fixated upon the lights of the buildings across the dark waters far below.</p><p>“I’ll be back tomorrow, huh?” Race says cheerfully. “Who knows what I’m gonna win tomorrow.”</p><p>“All right then,” Spot answers wearily. “Goddamnnit Racer, you could talk Pulitzer into lettin’ you run the World.”</p><p>“Too right.” Race spits into his hand and offers it. Spot hesitates a moment, then reciprocates, catches his hand up in a firm handshake.</p><p>It’s the damp spit somehow, the long bony fingers around his own. Makes Race feel all of a sudden hot on the inside, neck burning, smile torn off right off his face.</p><p>“I’ll be seein’ youse,” he manages. Neither of them have let go. He can feel sick panic welling up inside his stomach.</p><p>
  <em>Goddamn, let go of him.</em>
</p><p>Spot drops his hand and shrugs. “I’m guessin’ you will.”</p><p>Race doesn’t respond, can’t respond. He takes out his cigar, then puts it back in and fidgets with the buttons on his waistcoat for want of something to do with his hands. </p><p>“I ain’t gotta sell down at the Sheepshead,” he offers. “Ain’t my turf.”</p><p>“Higgins, if I don’t hear Whip tellin’ me you’se been hustlin’ on my ground for the fifth time in a week I’ll think somethin’s gone wrong.”</p><p>Race offers the shakiest of smiles and beats it for home. The Brooklyn Bridge widens the gap in between them as Spot disappears into the dark streets.</p><p>And Race doesn’t look back to notice this. He <em>doesn't</em>.</p><p>***</p><p>The boarding house at 9 Duane Street does their lights off and shut up at midnight, as every newsboy and bootblack and messenger who walks through its front stoop knows. At this time Mr. Superintendent is in his nightcap and nightshirt, snoring away with his plump little wife, the Missus herself. Any boy finding himself unlucky enough to locked out past midnight, after racketing around the streets with the ne’er do wells or selling his papers too late, will just have to find the softest bit of Manhattan sidewalk he can to rest his head, till the sun rises and he can return to Newspaper Row.</p><p>However, Race is exempt from these kinds of flimsy rules - Racetrack Higgins does what he likes, as everyone knows, and when he feels like a bed for the night all he has to do is take a short stroll up the fire escape round the backside of the boarding house and rap smartly on the third-floor window, before one of the long-suffering newsboys who sleep nearby stumble off their bunks to let him in.</p><p>Tug Chalkley leaves the window open - it’s too hot to have it closed. He’s half out of his working clothes, insists on sleeping in a nightcap and nightshirt like he’s a gentleman even in the height of summer, and doesn’t care a bit when the other boys mock him mercilessly for it. Race smiles as he passes, tosses him two pennies seeing the lateness of this hour, and picks his way over to his bunk. </p><p>“What, you got some girl goin’ on in Brooklyn?” Kid Blink mutters sleepily as Race climbs into the bunk below him.</p><p>“Yeah, your ma.”</p><p>“My ma’s dead Higgins.”</p><p>“So’s mine, whaddya wanna do about it?”</p><p>Race doesn’t cross the Brooklyn Bridge in the morning, nor the next, or the next. He has a hundred papers over one shoulder and the headlines are all right, and when they aren’t an easy-going grin and an outlandish lie sells anyhow. He wanders through Central Park in the shade, meanders down the packed streets of Broadway, stops for a game of cards with some boys he knows in the Five Points and sells out his papers by suppertime on the Upper East Side. </p><p>He spends a nickel on half a meat pie and eats it sitting on the curbside, looking thoughtfully into the street, where flocks of silk-clad ladies and gentlemen buttoned into their evening suits are coming in and out of the glass-fronted restaurants.</p><p>Tug Chalkley, looking on cloud nine to be mixing with the rich folks, is waylaying them with headlines that beggar belief, making a roaring trade on the evening paper. Race takes a moment to decipher them all - the scrap between two gangs of little boys in Harlem that resulted in a grazed knee has become a bloodbath mob fight that killed twenty caught in the crossfire. The horrific carriage accident that’s run down an orphanage full of children is the lady and her baby who ran in front of a fruit cart on Broadway and scared the horse so bad he collided with a sandwich stall.</p><p>He spots Race, and hurries across the street, dodging a motor car with a crude hand gesture and a group of fur-wrapped women with a gallant bow. “How you doin’ Higgins?”</p><p>“All right, yourself?”</p><p>“Can’t complain, can’t complain.” Tug eyes Race’s pie - Race courteously offers him the remainder and is immediately refused. “Nah, I couldn’t, you know. Ain’t right to take a feller away from his supper.”</p><p>“Suit yourself. Good business?”</p><p>“Them rich folks!” Tug says. “I’ll tell you for free, a rich man’s meaner than a poor man, he is. I ain’t gonna be no miser when I’m rich, I never.”</p><p>Race finishes off his meat pie, and is considering stopping by in the Bowery on his way back to the lodging house to shoot craps with several apprentice acquaintances of his, when Tug speaks up again. “Near forgot, didn’t I - you gotta message delivered at the boardin’ house.”</p><p>Race sits up at once. “Who?” he asks anxiously. In his head he runs through every game of poker or craps or dice he’s played in the last month, wondering about outstanding debts or cheated men looking for their stolen cash. “If it’s that Plodder kid and his gang from Midtown you just gotta tell him you ain’t seen me in months, he don’t take no for an answer -”</p><p>“No it’s -” Tug digs through his pockets, comes up with a scrap of paper. “Some Italian kid came by with a message, and superintendent wrote it down, and Jack said he was gonna give it ta you but ain’t nobody seen you all day, so’s we thought you must’ve gone ta the tracks. Why ain’t you in Brooklyn? Youse always in Brooklyn.”</p><p>“I ain’t hardly ever,” Race lies, squinting at the note. He can read mostly, spent a few years in school which is more than most of the others, knows enough to decipher a headline which is all, usually, that he needs. </p><p><em>Pia Pivirotto,</em> it says. <em>Please come home. I need you.</em></p><p>Tug’s peering over his shoulder, unabashedly nosy. “Who’s that?” he inquires. “What does she want?”</p><p>“Gal I know,” Race says, getting to his feet. “Gotta go, Chalkley.”</p><p>“Where you goin’?” Tug calls.</p><p>“Home,” Race says, and grimaces. “I guess. Used ta be, anyhow.”</p><p>***</p><p>Not that Racetrack Higgins and the lucrative racket he had going on down at the Sheepshead was ever nothing but a point of contention for the Brooklyn newsboys. He had his newspapers and his bets, and he could lose a lot of money or win a lot of money, and either way he’d still end the week at the Brooklyn card table, gambling like a million-dollar heir. Spot was used to it, constantly appraised of Race’s whereabouts, listening wearily to a dozen newsies reporting all the fighting and cheating and stealing, Race always in the middle of the mess with a shit-eating grin and nothing to hold against him. </p><p>He’s gone suddenly, pulled a disappearing act like he wasn’t never there in the first place, no heavy clouds of cigar smoke or foul-mouthed remarks or newsboys with empty pockets ready for a fight because they don’t know any better when they’re playing cards against Race.</p><p>And Spot - Spot can’t expect to look up from his newspaper, sprawled in the prime spot on the dockside, to see a familiar shape sloping through the fish markets in his shirtsleeves at the end of the long hot days.</p><p>“Harlem?” Freddy says absently, pulling his cigarette out of his mouth to speak to Spot. He’s one of Race’s poker buddies, and he has a maddening habit of drawing out each sentence as if it’s a question. He’s more focused on his hand of cards; the two other boys opposite him are far more occupied with their own than Spot’s presence.</p><p>“What’s he gotta go to Harlem for?” Spot asks, irate. “Hell’s in Harlem that ain’t in Brooklyn?”</p><p>“Uh -” Freddy frowns and stabs out the cigarette on his boot as Cloddy puts two more bits in the pot. “Yeah, you’d haveta ask him, huh?”</p><p>“Ain’t been ta see youse?”</p><p>“Nah,” Freddy says. Cloddy rolls his eyes. “Better he ain’t, I owe him a fair bit, see?” </p><p>“Goddamn, what’re you doin’ gettin’ into debt with Jack Kelly’s boys -”</p><p>“But y’know, I heard he had family in Little Italy? Dunno.”</p><p>“You not sure?”</p><p>“Nah,” Freddy groans as Charley Smith puts down four jacks. “He don’t talk ‘bout it so much?”</p><p>“He never told you nothin’ else?”</p><p>“Give over Conlon.” Freddy throws his losing hand down on the table and digs around grumpily for another cigarette. “Maybe he has a whole litter of wop brothers and sisters? I never heard nothin’ ‘bout it, an’ least of all from Higgins.”</p><p>Spot leaves it alone. Isn’t nothing to him, he can hear Race retorting, something like the same defensive edge to his voice he’d had the night Spot saw him last.</p><p>That week there’s a nasty fight, a dozen boys from Brooklyn selling too close to the debatable turf lines they share with Queens newsies. Somebody pulls a knife, the bulls haul off four of them to the Refuge, and it’s left to Spot to handle the aftermath somehow, as well as one of the notoriously volatile Queens boys who looks straight at Whip’s bloody broken nose and point blank denies any fight ever taking place.</p><p>“They’re all goddamned queers in Queens, ain’t they?” Shotter snarls, spitting scarlet saliva on to the cement as they limp their way back to the Brooklyn lodging house, and the others lend raucous agreement, mocking laughter, comradely shoulders knocking against Spot’s. They repeat it over and over, until they’ve got the whole lodging house ready to go back to Queens to start another fight, and Spot’s smoking cigarette after cigarette outside in the alley, glaring down at the sidewalk.</p><p>He gives in eventually, gets Whip by the scruff of his dirty neck and orders him down to the Manhattan newsboy’s lodging to retrieve the couple of quarters Race had purloined off him at some point, but everyone knows Spot Conlon isn’t crying after a few lost pennies.</p><p>“He ain’t there,” Whip comes running back to inform him, flushed and sticky in the heat of the New York sun. “That crip kid said they ain’t seen ‘im in days.” </p><p>
  <em>Leave it.</em>
</p><p>Damn Race, damn him. Spot wakes up before dawn, restless, dresses and slips away in darkness, takes the long trek across the Brooklyn Bridge toward Harlem. </p><p>He’s not so far past Broadway as the sun rises, cloaked by factory employees trudging off to work or on their way home after long shift, grey-faced and down in the mouth, when he sees Jack Kelly watching him from the opposite side of the road, stack of newspapers hoisted on one shoulder.</p><p>Spot slows, scowling, and waits. Kelly knocks off his cowboy hat, letting it hang from his neck by the fraying strings and crosses the road, his expression unreadable. He falls into step beside Spot, and they continue in silence. </p><p>“Got business in Manhattan, Conlon?” Kelly asks at last.</p><p>“East Harlem.”</p><p>Kelly raises his eyebrows. “You wanna elaborate?”</p><p>“Wanna mind your own?”</p><p>But Kelly’s never dissuaded, as persistent as a dog with a bone. “If you’se in my borough, I see it is my business.”</p><p>“You do, huh?”</p><p>“You goin’ lookin’ for Higgins?”</p><p>Spot’s hand goes to the stick swinging from his suspenders. </p><p>“What might give you that kind’ve impression?”</p><p>He’s careful. He’s always been careful. You don’t last long if you’re not careful, not in Brooklyn, but Kelly’s looking at him sideways, gaze narrow.</p><p>“Well,” he says easily, “You sent that skinny kid with the freckles lookin’ for ‘im the other day. Whip ain’t it?”</p><p>“Yeah?” Spot demands. His mouth is dry. “So what if I did? He owes me.”</p><p>“Couple of quarters?” Kelly asks in disbelief. “That’s what Whip was sayin’, mouthin’ off at Crutchie too, actin’ like Race’d gone and robbed a bank. He ain’t no thief. Well -” he frowns, amends himself - “he ain’t ever stolen from another newsie anyhow. ‘Least nothin’ that he didn’ win, fair and square.”</p><p>“That’s real nice of him, ain’t it?” Spot snaps. “Damned saint. I toldya, I got business in Harlem. I ain’t got nothin’ ta do with Higgins.”</p><p>“And we’s back ta where we started. What’s your business?”</p><p>Spot would dearly like to whack the smart look of Jack Kelly’s face with the stick hanging from his suspenders, and just barely restrains himself. </p><p>“Gotta girl there, ain’t I?” he mutters, teeth gritted. “Know what one of ‘em is, Kelly? Or do you just like ta run after Crutchie all the livelong day?”</p><p>“All right then,” Kelly says surprisingly. He pauses and readjusts his newspapers. “Course I run after Crutchie, somebody’s gotta. What’s your girl’s name then?”</p><p>“Mind your own goddamn -”</p><p>Kelly’s holding up his hands in surrender, grinning. “Best be goin’, seein’ it’s clear you don’t want no company. When you do find Race, tell ‘im Mush’s gone and taken his bunk. Oughta bring ‘im back quick.”</p><p>Spot swears at him, but Kelly has already tipped his hat back on his head and disappeared into the Broadway crowds again, a tiny mocking smile on his face as if he <em>knows</em>.</p><p>The sun is hot beyond belief. Spot can practically feel it burning the exposed slice of skin on his neck, between cap and collar. He wishes he were back at the docks with his newspapers and his clean conscience, thinks he would like nothing better than to dive into the cold depths of the East River, wash off the grime and sweat of the day. Instead he’s in the midst of Midtown, perspiration trickling down his back, hot and disgruntled and uneasy.</p><p>Not about the Harlem boys, who are content to wage their own petty battles with each other. They all got knives, but Spot has a switchblade or several in his pockets and boots, would be an idiot to stick his nose out the door of the Brooklyn lodging house without them. No, the sudden nervousness he’s experiencing has nothing to do with the street trash in Harlem, and far more to do with Racetrack Higgins.</p><p>Spot spits bitterly on the ground, his scowl growing fiercer. He’s wasting his time. The sun’s growing ever higher in the sky. If he wants to make it back to Brooklyn before nightfall he’d be best to just go right now, try find some way to stand the sleepless nights, the time when Race will inevitably come wending his way back to Brooklyn like he’s never left, only this time there’ll be something lingering in the air. Something Spot can’t, won’t confront.</p><p>
  <em>Go back, goddamn you.</em>
</p><p>He’s about to do just that, down deep in the cement forest of tenement buildings and rubble yards, when he sees him, as if Providence - which Spot’s never believed in, never will - put him there on purpose. Race is sitting slouched up on the front steps of a rickety old affair not twenty yards away, smoking like a chimney.</p><p>The street’s crowded, the gasworks on the opposite side belching smoke, pieced-together shacks made out of corrugated iron and tarpaulins, congested with people and passerbys. A girl not much older than Race opens the door of the building he’s sitting next to, a brown paper package on her head and a little boy in a sling across her back, and shakes her head as she passes him, her words carried away by the noise of the street. She has Race’s eyes, Spot realises in the split second where she glances up and their gazes meet. </p><p>She frowns, bewildered, and says something else to Race, who stills, then gets to his feet. He throws away his cigar. He turns around, and finds Spot scowling back at him. </p><p>“You’re outta your way, ain’t you Conlon?”</p><p>***</p><p>By the turn of the 20th century the Italians and Sicilians dominated East Harlem, settling block by block into a miniature recreation of the regions they’d left behind back in the old country, abandoned in search of the American dream. </p><p>Pia Casella and her family, emigrating from in the Salerno region, South Italy, arrived at the Emigrant Landing Depot of Castle Garden in 1883, seven years before it closed its doors. They settled with other Salerno natives, close to 115th Street east of Lexington, and when Pia was married to a man from Salerno fourteen years later, and became Pia Pivirotto, she and her husband and son remained in her parents’ apartment, to care for her widowed mother.</p><p>Race used to come home sometimes, back when his mama was still alive. Never told nobody where he went, but as far as the rest of the newsboys are concerned he’s a runner, and that’s nobody’s business but your own. He still knows every brick, every brownstone, the elevated line rattling overhead, Bonfiglio’s where his mama bought their bread, the factory where his papa used to work, the church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel they walked to every Sunday.</p><p>It’s six flights up, and he still knows every single stair off by heart, the bannister he used to slide down on his way to school and the exact spot to jump off to make Signora Federico come tearing out of her apartment cursing, walking stick swinging like a sword. </p><p>Frank Pivirotto comes to the door, big and ugly as Race remembers him. He takes in Race, leaning against the doorframe, and immediately slams it closed again. </p><p>“Who is it?” someone asks from within. “Who was that?”</p><p>The door reopens. Pia’s husband, glowering all the while, moves minutely to one side and jerks his head. “In.”</p><p>In the kitchen a dark-haired woman with a boy on her hip gives an exclamation. “<em>Antonio, mio Dio sei qui</em>. You have grown so much, I have not seen you in such long time.” Pia’s smile is strained, her arms tight around her son.</p><p> </p><p>Frank scowls, sitting down heavily at the kitchen table. His hands, packing his pipe with tobacco, are shaking like they always used to, and he doesn’t like people to notice. Race keeps his eyes averted, looks at his sister instead. </p><p>“How much time?” she asks. “You are so tall, so handsome. You look like papà.”</p><p>“Hope not,” Race says, and lets her hug him and smooth his hair. “I guess things got busy.”</p><p>“You are well? You are fed?”</p><p>“Do all right. Good enough ta make a livin’ on.”</p><p>“All right, he says,” Frank repeats sourly.</p><p>Pia’s gaze darts to her husband. Her movements are awkward as she shifts the toddler around, so that he is cradled to her breast. She says something pleading in Italian, to which her husband gives a short, sharp laugh.</p><p>“Mama said you would be,” she mumbles, turning back to Race. “You always knew how to take care of yourself.”</p><p>“He back for good this time?” Frank demands. “This ain’t no hotel, and we ain’t no charity. I won’t be gettin’ robbed blind by his street rat pals -”</p><p>“Well I ain’t stayin’,” Race snaps at him. “I gotta work to live, and I didn’t never take nothin’ that wasn’t mine ta take.”</p><p>Pia nods quickly. “No -”</p><p>Her husband slams his pipe down on the table. “Oh, in and out of ‘ere, if you’re pleasin’,” he growls. “Comin’ one day and gone the next, but he can’t even show his sorry hide at his own mama’s funeral -”</p><p>Race jumps to his feet, “<em>Frank</em>!” Pia says shrilly; the child at her breast senses the turn of the atmosphere and begins to snivel. She takes a deep breath, pale in the face, and soothes him with a whispered word. “Couldn’t you go to Bonfiglio’s for the bread, my love?”</p><p>Once Frank is gone - he moves slowly, shrugging into his jacket and pulling on his boots, eyeing Race with utter loathing the whole while - Pia seems to let out a breath. She rises, sets down her son. Leaning down to touch the top of his head, she looks around and gives Race a smile that is vaguely reminiscent of the sister he grew up with.</p><p>“Did Emilio give you my message? His mama told me he has job now, delivery boy on East Side, so I asked him to go and see if he could find you.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Race says. “I got it. Was worried.”</p><p>Pia nods, smooths down her apron over her hips and turns to the kitchen. “I was worried you would not come,” she says softly. “We had not seen you in long time. You would like tea? I will make you tea.”</p><p>“I dunno . . .”</p><p>“<em>Per favore</em>.”</p><p>Race aquesieces. Pia boils the kettle, looks out the window anxiously all the while, snatches the kettle off the hob as soon as it whistles. She serves one chipped mug to Race, and sits back down opposite him. She was never afraid of anything, not the dark nor their father, and now she jumps at everything, scared of her own shadow. Already she’s nervous again, looking at the door every few seconds as if she can hear footsteps in the passage.</p><p>“I don’t want you to think otherwise,” she says at last. “Frank is good man. He mean well. He does.”</p><p>Race shrugs. Pia bites her lip. “He is like his papà,” she ventures. “You remember everyone used to talk about Signore Pivirotto and what quick temper he had.”</p><p>“S’pose.”</p><p>Someone slams a door on the floor below, and Pia twitches, just slightly. A woman is bawling a string of curses, and there’s a man shouting back at her. </p><p>Race’s sister looks close to tears. “It is only that he does not give me money for Gabriele,” she whispers. “Nothing. He say - he say that he is not his son, and he owe me no responsibility to him.”</p><p>Race looks again to Gabriele, determinedly pulling himself to his feet by the leg of the table.  Three this year, but Pia has been married for just two. She was lucky, their mama always said it, that Frank Pivirotto would still take her, even after she’d done something so terrible.</p><p>“He promised mama he’d take care’ve you.”</p><p>“He is. He is taking care of me,” Pia amends. “He loves me. He does. I thought - I thought he might grow to love Gabriele too.”</p><p>“I can’t do nothin’,” Race says. “I ain’t takin’ it up wit’ ‘im for you. I told you I didn’t never want ta come back here again.”</p><p>Pia just looks at him wearily. “I know,” she says. “I know. I just - I am needing to borrow something. For ‘im, not me. I cannot afford the things he is needing. It will be winter, soon enough, and he is always sick.”</p><p>Race exhales. He knows he looks bitter, sounds bitter. He knows Pia loves him, but not as much as she loves her son, and the little life she’s carved out for herself.</p><p>He digs in his pocket and brings out three quarters. It’s all he has left of his poker earnings. He thinks of Spot passing them over, rolling his eyes, laughing at something forgotten. It makes him think of other things, which are not so simple, so in the end it is difficult to hand over that money to Pia, who slips it safe from Frank into the pocket of her dress and thanks him, her attention already back on her son. </p><p>***<br/>
He stays a few days. She’s lonely, he can see that, painfully lonely, her whole world reduced to her son and her husband and her kitchen, caged in like a mouse in a trap. Race sleeps on the floor at nights under his mama’s old patch quilt. In the early hours of the morning when sleep is still evading him, he listens to his sister crying softly in her bedroom next door, and the deeper baritone of Frank’s voice, indecipherable. </p><p>Gabriele is a quiet baby, he always was, like he knew his very birth was a sin. Race remembers that day, and how he leaned over the blanket-filled dresser drawer to stare, and wondered how anything could be so tiny. He’s outgrown the drawer now, sleeping close to the stove instead with his rag baby. Race wonders how similar his and Gabriele’s lives could be; both poor, both unwanted, both living in a world that doesn’t understand nor want to do so. </p><p>The next morning is just as hot as it’s been all week - Race wakes up to see Pia in the tiny kitchen, her eyes swollen and her hair lank as she bends over the laundry tub. She used to be pretty, ‘least that’s what the boys in their building thought. Mama always said that was how Pia’s troubles started. Too pretty, spirits too high. Race remembers Pia slipping away from school at the end of the day, the boy who used to meet her at the end of street.</p><p>“Smoke outside,” she cautions Race, even though the stink of Frank’s pipe permeates the room. Race sits down on the front steps outside the building and lights a cigar. It’s a hot day, near midsummer, but the sweltering streets are packed nevertheless, people running back and forward, peddling and begging and shouting out their wares. </p><p>Pia comes outside with Gabriele tied across her back, a package of laundry ready for delivery on her head. “Thank you,” she says to Race, her face earnest.</p><p>“Course,” he replies.</p><p>She looks out to the street and her smile falters. Race wonders if she’s seen Frank, but instead she says to him, “There is a boy watching you.”</p><p>Race knows who it will be, even before he throws away the burnt-out end of his cigar and turns around, unable to resist. Spot’s standing there, more freckled than ever by the hot sun, scowl fierce.</p><p>“You’re outta your way, Conlon.”</p><p>“Needed ta talk ta you,” Spot grits out. “You busy?”</p><p>“Ain’t,” Race says. “I can talk.”</p><p>“Well -” it looks like Spot might be about to change his mind; Race nods at him, gesturing him over to the building, turning his back and somehow thinking that Spot will follow, nevertheless. Pia is waiting, Gabriele clinging to her blouse as she eyes Spot.</p><p>“I shall call Frank,” she says. It is more warning to Spot than any real threat. “What does he want?”</p><p>“Just owes me some money, s’all,” Spot says from behind him. Race turns around. He’s smiling, easy, charming.</p><p>“This here’s Pia, my sister,” Race says to him. “And Gabriele, he’s my nephew. Pia, this is Spot, Spot Conlon.” He pauses, grins. “King of Brooklyn.” </p><p>Spot gives him a little, sharp glance. His eyes are glinting. The building is dark after the brightness of the street outside, gaslit with the only natural light coming from the open doorway. The stairs to the first floor creak upward, but Race is heading for the opening underneath them between the wood panels, the one he spotted this morning on his way down and imagined Gabriele and the other neighbourhood children using as a hideout.</p><p>“Sorry, so’s you know,” he says awkwardly.</p><p>“What for?”</p><p>Race shrugs. He’s as far as he can get against the wall, far away from Spot as he can be, hands balled up like he’s getting ready for a fight.</p><p>“For disappearin’ like that,” he says eventually.</p><p>“Ain’t my business.”</p><p>“You’re here, ain’t you?” Race says irritably. “Tellin’ me it ain’t your business, but you came all the way over from Brooklyn - ta do what?”</p><p>Spot doesn’t reply.</p><p>“Why’d you come?” Race repeats.</p><p>For a moment he thinks Spot really will leave. Instead he says, his voice rough, “We ain’t been doin’ nothin’ ta be ashamed of, have we? Just talked, s’all. Nothin’ wrong wit’ talkin’.”</p><p>“Ain’t what I asked -”</p><p>“Well I didn’t know where’n the <em>hell</em> you’d got ta.” Spot says suddenly, angrily. “There one day, then you ain’t, up and vanished, nothing.”</p><p>“Wouldn’t’ve thought you’d care,” Race replies. “Don’t need ta be bothered watchin’ out for a newsie who don’t even belong to Brooklyn.”</p><p>“You’re Brooklyn,” Spot mutters. “Youse always was, where it counted.”</p><p>Race’s stomach twists, hard. He’s sweating right through his shirt, and Christ knows it smells none too good down here. “Conlon?” he breathes out, so close to silent it’s a wonder Spot can hear him.</p><p>“Yeah?” Spot’s own voice is hoarse. Race isn’t even aware of moving, except all at once his forehead is just touching Spot’s, and Spot’s fingers are pressing bruisingly into his wrists. </p><p>He lurches in shock, Spot lets go like he’s been burned, and Race shoulders him against the opposite wall. Ancient cobwebs and the smell of dry rot reach him, and he takes Spot’s jaw and comes in so close that he can see the fever-brightness of Spot’s eyes in the meagre light.</p><p>“You got my money Higgins?” Spot asks. </p><p>Race shoves at him. “Ain’t got your goddamn money Conlon, and you know it.”</p><p>Spot’s breath is hot on his nose and lips and cheeks. He smells of sweat, sweat and grime and newspaper ink.  Race’s head is spinning. Spot shoves back at him, just as hard. “Get off Higgins.”</p><p>Race jerks his hand away. He feels hot all over.  </p><p>“Ain’t got your <em>goddamn</em> money,” he repeats furiously.</p><p>Spot hits him. It’s not as hard as he should have hit, and Race has seen him hit people plenty of times. Race hardly feels it. They’re so close they’re touching nearly head to toe, heat on heat. Not more than a moment later, before Race can lose his nerve, he brings his lips down, hard, on Spot’s mouth.  </p><p>For a second they stay like that - when Spot tears away with a muffled curse, it’s too late, far too late. It’s solid and burning hot, and Race, with all the cautiousness of a stablehand trying to calm a spooked horse, touches here and there, gentle at first and then bolder, and Spot finally lets him, leans into the touch and groans.</p><p>“<em>Goddamnit</em> Conlon,” Race mutters against his neck.</p><p>Spot chokes out something annoyed and shoves him backward, forced against the opposite wall while dust billows out suffocatingly around them, not breaking their contact until he comes up for air, only to bite down on Race’s lip so hard that Race can feel the metallic taste of blood on his tongue.</p><p>Mush doesn’t talk about this, and Mush is out courting some girl or another every other Sunday. Mush describes good girls and bad girls and girls who might let him get a hand up their skirts, but not girls who hit and bite and could wrestle you to the ground any day of the week. Spot makes Race’s lungs hurt and his eyes sting, makes him want to do something terrible.</p><p>Distantly he realises that his hands are reaching under Spot’s shirt, tracing across the damp downy skin of his stomach, across his ribs, and then down to hip bones that curve away under Race’s hands toward the waist of his trousers. Race’s breath catches, but Spot just presses closer. </p><p>“Say somethin’,” Race says.</p><p>“What?” Spot whispers hazily. “What d’you want me ta -” Race listens to him cut off as Race’s hand dips lower still, and wraps around him. </p><p>Spot stifles a moan into Race’s shoulder. Race smiles, slow at first, then refining the movement as he gets used to the feeling, trying to figure out how to do it just so to make Spot make that same noise.</p><p>“I dunno, anythin’,” he manages to get out, and before he can stop himself - “I like hearin’ your voice.”</p><p>But Spot just grunts, fumbles at the buttons of Race’s trousers like he can’t keep away and says, “you’re such a fuckin’ mouth Higgins. Ain’t nothin’ I ever heard of, gettin’ off on someone talkin’ your ear off.”</p><p>They go quick and quiet, fumbling in the half-shadows. Race is so caught up he loses track of his surroundings - it’s only when a door slams somewhere directly above their heads that he starts violently, and relinquishes his grip.</p><p>“Pia?” calls a groggy voice. </p><p>Spot swears almost silently and pushes Race off him. The stairs above them are creaking as a heavy step makes their way down them. “<em>Pia, dove sei</em>?” </p><p>Race moves lightning-fast, yanking his trousers up and shoving Spot back into the darkness. Backs flat against the wall they stay there, hardly daring to breathe.</p><p>“Yes?” Race hears his sister’s voice, very close by. She sounds sullen.</p><p>“You been ta see Rossini?”</p><p>“I am delivering laundry all morning, no time.”</p><p>“I toldya ta deliver ta Rossini, first thing.”</p><p>“Then there is nobody to watch Gabriele,” Pia snaps. </p><p>“Take ‘im with you.”</p><p>“No, I never take my boy near that <em>criminale</em>.”</p><p>Frank spits out something sharp in Italian, and they hear Pia cry out, “let go!”</p><p>Race and Spot stand paralyzed under the dark, dusty staircase. Race thinks he can feel Spot’s heart thumping beside his own. His sister and Frank are both shouting, a mixture of Italian and English, and Gabriele is crying, a drawn out, high pitched whimper.</p><p>“You are drunk,” Pia says. She sounds like she’s crying too. “Let <em>go</em> of me.”</p><p>Then they really set up a ruckus. Frank’s shouting, and Pia is sobbing, and, the building’s occupants are slamming doors, yelling threats, some tenant bawling down the stairwell that he will call the copper, he will, right now, this very instant. </p><p>Race shakes himself free of Spot and ducks out from under the staircase. His fist lands sickeningly, satisfyingly. Pia’s screaming at him, he can hear Gabriele howling and before he’s even aware of what’s going on Spot’s somehow shoving his way between Race and Frank.</p><p>Spot’s a good fighter, always has been, but Frank's more than twice his size, fists like iron, fuelled by drink. Race can hear the array of curious tenants who have come down to watch yelling, still unwilling to intervene. He plunges a hand into his pocket, and pulls out the switchblade he uses for the worst fights.</p><p>Spot’s spitting blood, back against the wall. </p><p>“Get off ‘im,” Race says shakily. “You can hear me. Get off ‘im now.”</p><p>Frank turns and sees the blade, and he goes very, very still. “<em>Bastardo</em> -”</p><p>Choking out a breath, Spot lifts his head, crimson trickling down his lips. The crowd stirs.</p><p>“Not right.”</p><p>“Leave off ‘im Pivirotto, kid’s had enough of it.”</p><p>Spot fixes an iron glare on Frank, who is being pulled away by a scowling boy with a dirty peaked cap and a balding middle-aged man. His gaze is locked on Race’s knife. </p><p>Pia rushes to her husband, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. Amidst the thirty-odd onlookers watching them, a woman with her hair in a kerchief picks up Gabriele and tries to quiet him.</p><p>“Go,” Pia manages, turning around. “You go now. And take him.” She nods to Spot, who is painfully sitting up. The woman who is holding Gabriele puts an arm around her, and helps her up the stairs. Frank shakes himself free, and storms out of the front door of the tenement with a last mutinous glance at Race’s switchblade.</p><p>Race watches him go, wary, and then looks around at the assembled, gawking crowd, who are muttering uneasily amongst themselves. “Let’s <em>go</em>,” he says under his breath.</p><p>When they’re a hundred yards down the street, he finally turns around. “I was handlin’ it.”</p><p>“I know.” Spot leans over and spits out a mouthful of blood into the gutter. When he turns back around, Race notices the small chip in his tooth.</p><p>“Don’t need no protectin’,” he says.</p><p>“I <em>know</em>.”</p><p>“He would’ve caved your head in.”</p><p>“I don’t need no protectin’ neither. Put your goddamn knife away Higgins.”</p><p>Race reluctantly flicks the blade closed, tucks it in his boot.</p><p>“Like you was gonna use it,” Spot says. “What’re you carryin’ that around for?”</p><p>“I would’ve,” Race says grumpily. “If I’d needed ta. Don’t act like you ain’t haulin’ a dozen ‘round town, I heard the stories. Spot Conlon and his silver-handle knives, carve up your face soon as look at you.”</p><p>“Well I wasn’t stupid enough to carve up an Italian in the middle’ve Little Italy, and that’s why we still got all’ve our fingers, so drop it and admit I’m right.”</p><p>Race makes an ugly face and shuts up. He wouldn’t have if it was anyone else, but he’s still waiting for Spot to realise what happened and fracture his skull on the nearest brick wall.</p><p>But he doesn’t. Spot spits up some more blood and swears at it, and then Race feels the brief sensation of a hand ghosting along his own. When he glances across at Spot, he has both hands in his pockets, and he’s glaring at the cobblestone, and Race ducks his head because he knows he’s got a stupid look on his face.</p><p>“You all right?” he asks quietly, once they’re on one of the emptier streets, where most of the buildings are burnt out or derelict and condemned.</p><p>“Uh -” Spot carefully presses down on a rib and winces a little. “Nothin’ broken.”</p><p>“You gotta chipped tooth.”</p><p>“No kiddin’?” Spot feels for it with his tongue, frowns. “If that was my sister, I’d kill him.”</p><p>“Pia ain’t gonna thank me for killin’ her husband,” Race answers bitterly. “And she’s all I got left, so how’m I gonna do that to her, huh? She ain’t got nobody else takin’ care’ve her.”</p><p>“<em>That’s</em> takin’ care of?”</p><p>“He took her on, even after she went and got herself a kid. Put a roof over their heads. Not like I can take care’ve her, Can’t hardly take care’ve myself.”</p><p>“You do all right. And -” Spot hesitates - “she ain’t all you got, ‘cause you got me,” he says in a low voice.</p><p>“Aw, give over Conlon,” Race says, grinning. “I’ll get to thinkin’ you’se goin’ soft on me.” But he knocks his shoulder gently into Spot’s, and they keep going like that, closer than before, heads together, fingers just touching. They’d never get closer than that, out in the open, but maybe Race can live with it.</p><p>“By the way,” Spot says as they cross the bridge over the Harlem River. “Kelly said to tell you, Mush took over your bunk.”</p><p>Race turns to stare at him “He <em>didn’t</em>,” he says in horror. “I’m tellin’ you, Mush drools in his sleep fair enough to fill up this goddamned river.”</p>
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